AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 283 



here at work in matter ? Shall we, like some physi- 

 ologists, invoke the six or eight forces admitted by 

 chemists and natural philosophers, in explanation of 

 the phenomena occurring in inorganic matter?* Long 

 ago we gave the following reply to this question :f — - 

 Yes; in organized beings we find the phenomena 

 of heat, light, and electricity ; chemical afiinity and 

 capillary attraction are momentarily manifested, and 

 possibly we may also find in them processes analogous 

 to those of catalysis and epipolism. But these phe- 

 nomena are accomplished, and these processes carried 

 on, under the influence of a far higher power, whose 

 existence it is in truth impossible to deny. Electricity, 

 heat, and chemical affinity operate in living beings, 

 and are certainly engaged in the production of the 

 vital vortex. Nevertheless, they labour only under 

 the control and regulation of a superior force — life, 

 which modifies all brute forces, and causes them to 

 produce muscle and blood instead of ammoniacal salts ; 



* Chemists and natural philosophers accuse naturalists of endea- 

 vouring to cloak ignorance with a word, in supposing the existence 

 of a special force in order to account for the series of phenomena 

 characteristic of living beings. It is true that astronomers explain 

 the motion of the heavenly bodies by the hypothesis of gravity 

 alone ; but in explaining the action of their instruments, or the 

 products of their laboratories, both chemists and physicists invoke 

 in their turn, light, gravity, heat, electricity, and magnetism ; others 

 add, affinity, capillarity, endosmosis, catalysis, epipolism, &c. ; all 

 these for mere inorganic matter ! After showing that they them- 

 selves are so little exacting, it is indeed dealing generously with 

 naturalists, to deny them the right of supposing one solitary force 

 more, to preside over such characteristic, varied, and complex 

 phenomena as those of living beings ! 



t In my " Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste," and in many articles in 

 the " Kevue des deux Mondes." 



